Under $800 | 6D5N in Moalboal, Cebu (includes 4 dives, canyoning & Osmena Peak!)
- alaughingseal
- Dec 7, 2019
- 6 min read
Moalboal, nearer to the southern part of Philippines, offers a wide variety of activities, such as diving in the clear blue sea, swimming alongside graceful turtles, jumping off cliffs at Kawasan Falls, hiking up the beautiful Osmeña Peak, and watching the majestic purple sunset. Not forgetting their local food - adobo, sisig and delicious talong!
Number of days: 6
Budget per person: <$800
Travel period: December 2019
Weather: Sunny
Accommodation: Cebu Seaview Resort (S$400 for 5 nights for 3 pax)
Must-go recommendations:
Diving (Pescador Island - 2 sites, Tongo Sanctuary, Sardine Run)
Canyoning at Kawasan Falls
Hike up Osmeña Peak
Day 1
Travelling from Singapore to Cebu
Flying into Cebu cost us about $200 via Scoot and Cebu Pacific and the duration was about 3.5h. We took the 8am flight and managed to reach Cebu around 12pm. This gave us ample of time to travel to Moalboal. Travelling to Moalboal took us about 5h due to the transfers.
This is a breakdown of getting from Cebu Airport to Moalboal:
Cab from Cebu Airport to Cebu Bus Station
500 php for 3
20 - 30 minutes ride
Taking the white taxi would be preferable as we read that the yellow taxis could possibly ask for a ridiculous amount!
Bus from Cebu Bus Station to Moalboal Bus Station
156 php per person (choose the aircon bus!!)
3 - 4 hour ride
Tip: have a simple lunch at the Cebu Bus Station before heading towards Moalboal!
Tricycle from Moalboal Bus Station to Cebu Seaview Resort
200 php per tuktuk
10 min ride
We checked into our beautiful accommodation at around 7pm and had dinner at their very own restaurant. I would say that their food maybe slightly steeper (about 320 php per meal) but it is one of the best we had in Moalboal!
Before flying to Cebu, we were contemplating on the accommodation and most of them would amount to about S$750 - S$800 for 5 nights for 3. We were lucky to have found Cebu Seaview Resort via Cebu Fun Divers and as it was a newly built resort, they were having a 20% promotion! That explains the low price that we got for!
However, the location was not optimal :( We had to walk about 10 mins out to places with decent food and that would mean that on certain days when we were really tired from diving/activities, we would end up just eating at our accommodation’s restaurant!
Accommodation: Cebu Seaview Resort (S$400 for 5 nights for 3 pax)
Transport: about 390 php per person (S$10.60 pp)
Food: Cebu Seaview Resort Restaurant
Day 2
Relaxed Day!
Due to the unforeseen circumstances - Typhoon Tisoy was passing through Manila - we weren't allowed to dive today and as we had not planned for anything else, we decided to just walk around the town! Eventually, we decided to go for a dry full body massage at Heavenly Sauna for 350 php.
We then decided to have lunch at this place called Makan and it was quite a disaster :( The food was extremely oily and it wasn't truly satisfying. Would not return to this place again...
We decided to have post-lunch meal at Shaka and they serve affordable smoothies and acai bowls. We ordered one flat white, one acai bowl and a cup of smoothie for just 500 php!
We had dinner at Island Wok (somewhere near our accommodation). We ordered their ramen set and it was pretty decent!
Food: Makan, Shaka, Island Wok
Day 3
Canyoning at Kawasan Falls
Due to the typhoon, we weren't allowed to dive again and we made a swift decision to bring forward our canyoning! That has got to be a the best decision ever and it was truly the highlight of our trip! We donned on our long tights (to protect ourselves if we fall or scrape our knees) and our booties and headed towards the Planet Action booth at Tipolo Beach Resort.
We booked our Canyoning tour with Planet Action for 2000 php per person. It would be recommended that you book this tour from an established company as only their guides would know exactly where would be a safe place to cliff dive from!
Canyoning involved jumping off cliffs and sliding down rocks! Most cliffs were optional to jump off from and I would think that the shorter cliffs were manageable (about 2-3m!). The optional cliffs range from 7m to 12m! It WAS SO THRILLING and ADRENALINE PUMPING! Pictures and videos would do it justice!
A 7m jump:
A 12m jump:
Day 4
Diving - Pescador Island, Tongo Sanctuary, Sardine Run
We would finally dive! No words could explain how excited we were about it and we were blessed with sunny weather and great visibility (10 - 15m!).
Pescador Island is filled with beautiful coral gardens and we saw several lion fish. There were minimal currents and that made a very calm and easy dive!
Tongo Sanctuary was famous for its hawksbill turtles and we were blessed to have seen about 6 of them! Many of them were swimming above us (shallower waters) and we managed to get up close to one really huge one that was resting on the reef!
Sardine Run - an extremely famous dive site with their massive amounts of sardine! It was pretty mind-blowing watching them swim around and swimming THROUGH them was a surreal experience!
We had dinner at Chili Bar and I would only recommend it for its ambience and cheap drinks, and nothing else! The food we ordered weren’t fantastic, in fact they were just normal but at a pretty steep price.
Food: Chili Bar
Day 5
Diving - Pescador Island Dive Site #2 and Hiking Osmeña Peak
We did a morning dive at Pescador Island, and this time round, we chose to dive at the other side of the island. It was GORGEOUS. Visibility was even better today and the schools of fishes were BEAUTIFUL! We managed to spot another turtle as well!
After our morning dive, we went to Last Filling Station for lunch and their pizza was delicious!!!
After lunch, we waited for our private car to arrive to bring us to Osmeña Peak. We have decided not to go for the Osmeña Peak's tour as the tours run from 9am - 3pm, but we wanted to watch the sunset there. Hence, we decided to book our own private car to bring us to Osmeña Peak at 2pm and then to send us back around 5pm - 6pm. We paid 3000 php for the private car to bring us from Cebu Seaview Resort to Osmeña Peak and back! The journey to and fro Osmeña Peak is about 4h!
The hike up Osmeña Peak was about 10 minutes and it was a relatively easy hike. It was well-marked and if you’d like, there are guides present to bring you too. After paying for the entrance (30 php per person), they would automatically get you a guide and you need not pay them officially, just tip them out of goodwill. After completing the hike, we felt that a guide was not necessary.
Upon returning to Moalboal, we made the BEST decision to dine at Ven'z Kitchen! Not only was their food mouthwatering, the prices were pretty reasonable as well! We would recommend their sisig, talong, adobo, and mango float!!
Food: Last Filling Station (pizza!), Ven'z Kitchen (talong, sisig, mango float!)
Day 6
Returning from Moalboal to Singapore
We loved Ven'z Kitchen so much that we had to return there for our last meal before heading back to Singapore!
We managed to negotiate a good deal for a private car to send us from Moalboal Bus Station to Cebu Airport directly. Initially, we were adamant on taking the bus but we heard that there wasn't any aircon bus in the afternoon and there might be heavy traffic from Cebu Bus Station to Cebu Airport. Thankfully, we met a nice guy who helped us to ask around and we managed to get a private car for 2000 php for the 3 of us! :) We recommend that it would be safer for one to factor in about 6h from Moalboal to Cebu Airport so you would not fear that you would miss your flight!
This entire trip would not have been possible if not for my partners in crime, who were brave enough to challenge themselves and challenge me to step out of our comfort zones to jump off those crazy 12m cliffs! They made diving a lot more enjoyable and I found myself laughing underwater! They also made flying the drone less scary as I know that they were constantly on the lookout for my drone :") Looking through pictures and videos were enjoyable as we found ourselves guffawing away. This trip was more than perfect, with a great mixture of adrenaline pumping activities, rest and diving :")
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